Rupert
Brooke, a War poet, had taken in the First World War and died in 1950 at the
age of 32. His war experiences and deep love for the country made his poem and
himself very popular. According to A. C. Ward, “In a group of sonnets he evoked
the patriotism and idealism of that strange and tragic year of 1814.”
The
poem ‘The Soldier’ is one of masterpiece of Brooke’s sonnets in which the poet speaks
about a soldier’s love for his own land. The poem also presents how his body
was given to him by him motherland, English.
The title ‘Soldier’ is an apt and thematic. It
reveals the theme of poem. The poem is about soldier’s love for England and his
desire that if she should dies in some corner of a foreign field then think that
it has turned into England for ever. He desires further that the love and
affection with which his mind is filled for England be turned into an External
Mind so that all the people too shall know his love for England.
The
poem is a sonnet written in 14 lines. It has been divided into eight and six
line stanzas.
The
first stanza narrates the soldier’s deep feeling. There is happiness even in
dying. In case he dies the country man should think that England has gone to
enrich the foreign land when his body would fall on the other country that
particular land would always become England’s. The rich earth would become
richer by his dust because his body is completely made of English things.
England has given him birth so the blood is English. In him is shaped England’s
custom and tradition. The country gave him soul and mind. His heart is pure and
the home is full of sunshine.
“In
that rich earth a richer dust concealed.’
‘A body of England’s breathing English air’,
The
soldier asks the countryman to imagine himself in the eternal mind when he dies
all evil will be gone and his pure mind would be found in all English dead and
living things. He would be happy when people would be laughing. He would be
there in their laugher. In each sights and sounds he would be found. The
country would be a heaven. In the last thus the poet presents his a hopeful
desire.
“And laughter, learnt of friends, and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English
heaven.”
Thus the poem shows the poet’s great
love for his motherland, and because of his love he is not afraid of death in
the battle. But when we think how he really died after writing this poem, his desires
expressed in the poem appear painful to us. Thus the poem has idealistic
patriotism.
Style
of ‘Soldier’
As far as poetic quality is concerned,
this is an autobiographical sonnet which begins with ‘I’ and there is other
pronoun ‘me’. Moreover the poet has given us is a subtle image. Through
concreteness, the poet leads us to abstractness. There is mixture of two
concrete and abstract things. e.g. Dust,
flowers, ways, are concrete but love, air, eternal mind, thought are abstract.
As
far as phonology of the poem is concerned, the poem follows abba abba cdc cdc
rhyme scheme. The poet has tried to
bring musicality through alliteration.
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed.
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day.
ÿ
Repetition of sound at line ends, called
Rhymes. The main function of Rhyme is to define or isolate the individual line
of hence and also link different lines of here together. The poem has remarkable rhyming words.
- be-me - roam-home -given-heaven.
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